


Different Web Uses

by kitty_pryde_bi_pride



Series: spider tendencies [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Mutant Powers, Peter Parker is a Mess, Sokovia Accords, Spider Shenanigans, like brief mentions and discussion of them, spider facts!, teenage superheroes becoming friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25941097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_pryde_bi_pride/pseuds/kitty_pryde_bi_pride
Summary: Spider silk can be used for many things.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Kitty Pryde
Series: spider tendencies [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1859734
Comments: 7
Kudos: 335
Collections: MCU Stories





	1. Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> so! this is the first fic in this series to have multiple chapters- it's just gonna be a gen thing with spider facts in the later chapters! this was just setting up the basic premise
> 
> i watched tons of those animated superhero tv shows with my brother growing up and i loved Kitty Pryde in xmen evolution- hence my username! i've been waiting for an excuse to include her in a fic and here goes nothing :) 
> 
> plz go ahead and comment/leave kudos if you like it! it means a lot

New York has an absurd amount of heroes – the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Doctor Strange and his wizard friends, a growing collection of solo vigilantes from Daredevil to Jessica Jones to Deadpool – and Peter’s met them all - he's always been good at making new friends, even with the world's elite - except one group:

Professor Xavier and his school of mutants.

He hadn’t really had a chance to meet any of New York’s heroes before the Accords took place, he was too new and fresh on the scene to have built up his own contacts and alliances, but afterwards it was a mixture of Tony and Steve who cautioned him against reaching out to the Academy.

Apparently, while the Accords had been a tough point of contention between the Avengers, they’d been taken as a declaration of full-out war towards mutants.

Considering that they expected mandatory full registration of not just active heroes but also individuals with powers and that the consequence to not registering with the world’s governments was a super-max secret prison, Peter can’t blame them.

He’s not going to mention anything to his mentors, doesn’t really ever plan to since he doesn’t want to be the one to pick a big fight while he’s still trying to prove his capability as a hero, but he mostly agrees with the X-Men: for all their hardships, quite a few of the Avengers had chosen their paths, for better or for worse.

Tony had seen becoming Iron Man as the only path towards righting his past wrongs, but he’d still chosen to publicly become a powerful hero. Steve had decided that the super-soldier serum was the best way to help their country in a time of war, but he’d still chosen to become enhanced and dedicate his life towards helping others.

Peter himself had been bitten on accident, had undergone an excruciating and drawn out transformation into the super-powered human he was today, had mutated and then been dropped back into his life- sure, he’d chosen to try and help people like his Uncle had always preached to him, but he was still trapped in his life. He never had the option to be normal again, to not be a mutant. For all the good he’s done since, all the friends he’s made and happiness he’s found, he’ll never be the one who made that initial choice.

So yeah, he gets why the mutants would’ve been upset with the Accords- they hadn’t chosen to be heroes either.

Due to his own very public association with heroes who had been heavily involved, if not actively supportive towards the Accords, it also makes sense that he’s probably not the first person they’d be friendly towards, regardless of their leader’s continued messages of human-mutant solidarity.

He’d resigned himself to having a non-existent relationship with some of New York’s most prolific heroes when one of them – she’d been there since the start of the Academy, one of the first actual children Xavier had taken in, most of New York could probably recognize her face due to the highly contested nature of her becoming a hero so young – falls into him during a routine patrol.

Literally into him.

It feels weird as all hell.

He drops like a rock, missing the building he’d been aiming for and falling haphazardly onto the roof of a lower building ahead of him, and she bounces out of him before rushing back over to check on him. “Oh my _god_ , you’re Spider-Man – this is like, so totally cool, Kurt’s gonna be _so_ mad I met you first – and I’m _so sorry_ I went, like, into you like that! Are you alright?”

She’s one of the very few superheroes his age - not that she knows that since his identity remains firmly under wraps to the general public - but Peter would be lying if he said he hadn’t had a small crush on her when footage of her facing down her majorly public threat – a runaway train set to collide with another, expected to blow up most of Westchester until she’d hopped on and phased it through each other until it was safely away from civilians – had surfaced.

He’s past it now, but the respect and admiration for her abilities and power hadn’t quite faded.

“You’re Kitty Pryde, the Shadowcat.” He wanted to sound cool in front of her, at least a little bit, but between their disastrous running into one another and the fact that his voice just cracked, that ship has clearly sailed.

Now that she’s confident he hasn’t horribly injured himself she straightens up, holding out a hand to help him up. He takes it and pulls himself to his feet, and she smiles sheepishly at him. “Guilty as charged, Spider-Man. Sorry to, like, drop in on you like that.”

“No harm, no foul,” he answers with a bright grin. She doesn’t react, probably because he’s wearing a full-face mask, but his voice is bright enough that he hopes the message got across. “So, X-Man, what are you doing all the way here in Queens? I’m sure you’re not just here to pay me a visit.”

Her face falls and her posture shifts to something looser, prepared to move on a whim if needed. Peter really wants this to go well, but he’s just continuing to strike out- it’s unfortunate, really.

“I’m actually running from someone, but I think I’ve lost them for now- I bet they thought I totally just disappeared when I phased into you!” She laughs, pulling her hair up into a ponytail, and playfully nudges Peter with her elbow. “They’re bound to catch up with me eventually, Spider-Man, and you’ve, like, been a huge help already. Want to help me show them who’s boss?”

He grins back and crushes the tracking device Tony stores in his helmet, breaking his mentor’s communication to him and taking the suit offline, then holds out his hand to her. She steps up to him without hesitation and wraps her arms around him, beaming. “I can get us out of New York, fast, and I’m on school break- we can do whatever.”

She leans back a bit, frowning quizzically at him. “Um. Not to be rude, but like- how old are you?”

“Oh, no, not again,” Peter mutters, before doing his best to recollect himself- practically every hero in New York knows who he is anyways, just because the public and government doesn’t know doesn’t mean it’s a well-kept secret. “I’m sixteen, actually.”

Kitty snorts and steps closer to him again. “Excellent. I’m seventeen, myself, and love a good surprise- Spider- _Man_ , what a riot!”

He flushes hotly under his mask and steps off the roof, using his web-shooters to propel them through New York’s skyline while she clings to him. “So, who are you running from anyways?”

She scowls and sighs. “It’s _totally_ stupid, for real- I can’t even believe it’s something that’s even happening to me right now! Basically, my best friend Bobby – he’s Ice-Man, if you didn’t know – and this guy named John got into a fight, they’re total hot-heads around each other – John literally, he’s like, Pyro or some stupid name like that – so they got into a fight, except then it got personal and I tried to shut them up, and now he and his _whole crew_ are chasing _me_. Bobby promised he’d send help, but he’s an _absolute idiot_ and I bet he got distracted with his girlfriend again – that’s Rogue, she’s the absolute coolest person _ever_ – so I’ve been running through New York all on my own.” She takes a deep breath, then looks back up at him. “Until now, at least. I bet it’ll be a fun week now!”

He smiles a little blankly, trying to process all that through his growing exhaustion – he’s been swinging for a while now, they’re well out of the way and into this really abandoned open space, but he’s not fully tired yet and still wants to find a good place for them to crash if they’re going to be on the run for a bit – and knows they’re already going to be fast friends.

Tony’s going to be horrified he found someone else who can talk as much as he does.

“Happy to help- besides, I can promise you this is way more interesting than hanging around my aunt and the Avengers for a full week.”


	2. Competition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spider silk can be used to create shelters and nests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is pretty much just them getting settled in their fun get-away- i hope i wrote a fun dynamic for peter and kitty! i'd like to think they're pretty chill friends, with both being super competent heroes but a little scatter-brained- peter's a dork and kitty would totally tease him, i think!
> 
> please feel free to leave comments/kudos if you liked this! i should have more updates soon

The first order of business when creating a secret hideaway is building an actual shelter- a tall order, when Peter and Kitty didn’t think ahead far enough to grab food or supplies before taking off hours away from all nearby civilization.

With Kitty’s direction, Peter had swung them towards what seemed to be an old mutant stronghold – a place that Bobby should know where to find them if he ever got around to it, with the caveat that John would probably know it too – that looked more like an apocalyptic wasteland than fun place to spend a week.

She claimed it was some early incarnation of the Wolverine’s danger room, essentially a space for all the X-Men to go crazy with exploring their powers in a space with no consequences due to property damage.

So: it was a great place to set up camp in the sense it would easy to defend with little collateral damage; but awful in the sense that it had absolutely not been built for an extended stay.

To be fair, Peter couldn’t really judge them for being unprepared for this exact scenario: considering they had both a private jet and a teleporter, it wasn’t like the X-Men ever planned to be stuck in this wasteland.

As things were, the pair of them were hungry and without means to contact anyone for food- Peter had never longed more for pizza delivery services. 

“Please tell me your insane survival coach put food somewhere in here,” Peter sighed, propped up against one of many dilapidated buildings- this one seemed to have once been a bakery, which only served to make him hungrier.

Kitty wasn’t doing much better- she’d stuck the soles of her shoes into the eaves of the building and was currently hanging listlessly out of sheer boredom.

“Uhhhh…Yeah, unfortunately, that doesn’t seem like Mr. Logan’s kind of thing,” she says pitifully. “I think he’d totally be more likely to send us hunting for cockroaches. Maybe he’d wish us good luck, if he was like, feeling generous.”

Peter laughs as best he could, even though he feels dead on his feet. “Sounds nice. I bet Mr. Stark would be here with a fully air-conditioned trailer, equipped with every amenity I could ask for and even some I couldn’t. I bet glamping was his invention just to get out of nature.”

“Sounds like Mr. Logan could kick his ass,” Kitty retorts with a grin.

He glares up at her. “Bet I can find and make a good shelter before you can?”

“Oh my gosh, you’re so on, little Spider-Boy,” she snorts and then drops out of the building, falling onto the ground next to him.

\-------

Two hours of competitive energy and hard work later, the sun was down and Peter has completed his shelter for the night.

He drops down to the ground and starts searching for Kitty. “Hey! I’ve finished mine, where are you?”

His only warning is a brief tingle in his arms before she steps through an unmarked building on his left.

“Finally finished?” She says with a smirk. “About time- I was starting to think you wouldn’t be finished till, like, way after nighttime. At least there’s still time to check them out before we have to sleep.” She pauses and raises her eyebrow at him. “So, losers first or should we start with checking out my shelter?”

Peter bursts out laughing and leans against the wall next to her. “Let’s start with yours since we’re right here. And don’t get too cocky, my shelter’s pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.”

She responds by grabbing his shoulder and pulling them both through the building’s wall behind them and- yup, that still feels weird as hell. He stumbles when she lets go, reacquainting himself with the feeling of solidity, before glancing around them.

“Whoa,” he mutters, because in all honesty? This is pretty impressive.

Kitty had spent her hours well, just as he’d expect from one of the most highly trained X-Men. She’d used large debris – a mixture of wood, concrete, metal poles, whatever she’d been able to lift – to board up the walls and windows, phasing them into the walls to strengthen and support them; creating a relatively secure space to rest while they expected visitors, safe or not. Somehow, she’d managed to scrounge up some curtains and storefront signs to create makeshift beds- Peter suspected Wolverine had made them do this exact thing a few times before. Finally, she had used sheet metal to make a trapdoor to the second floor, fusing it into the stairs. It looked like the only way to move it would be by phasing it back out, or by having super-strength to shove it out of the way- both things either of them could easily accomplish.

All in all, not so bad- fundamentally functional, if not the coziest, and definitely effective for a few nights of sleep if they didn’t mind getting a crick in their necks.

She taps her fingers on her arm and leans back. “Giving up yet? It’s, like, totally okay- it’s a good life skill, you know, accepting when you’ve been beaten.”

“You’re about to get some practice in it,” He answers with a grin. 

He grabs her hand and they walk back out of the shelter, straight through the wall like before. He holds out his arms to her and she steps into them. Kitty laughs and puts her own arms around his shoulders. “Going up?” She asks as she tightens her grip around him.

“Better hold on tight,” he answers, then uses his web-shooter to swing them to the top of the building. From there, she holds onto him as he jumps easily between roofs, swinging and throwing them when it’s too far to leap, until they finally arrive at his own nest.

She looks up at it and blinks dumbly, stepping towards it to examine it better. “Peter,” she starts, then turns to frown at him. “This is absolutely ridiculous, you have to know that, right?”

Now it’s his turn to frown at her. “Um, no? What do you mean?”

“Are you-” She starts, then starts gesturing blandly in front of them. “Okay, of course you’re serious, but you have to know I can’t sleep in this?”

He steps up to examine it alongside her. And…yeah, okay, he kind of gets what she means.

Peter’s shelter had been built made purely on instinct- it wasn’t his first nest either. He’d picked two of the tallest buildings and lugged up all the wood debris he could find, then pulled it all together with his webbing to form a hammock of sorts.

The finished product was a difficult to access and delicately suspended tent, that managed to achieve strength and stability with the wood base and coziness with the thick webbing on top and below it.

He steps into it, bending low to make sure he fit, then laid down and rolled over, stretching. He glances up at Kitty and grins. “See, it’s the perfect shelter!”

She rolls her eyes and sticks her finger onto the webbing, then makes a big show of not being able to pull away.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Peter mutters while pulling himself out of the bed. He grabs her finger and pulls it off the webbing, then sighs. “In my defense, my webbing isn’t sticky to me. And this stuff shouldn’t be too sticky in another little while- it’ll just be soft after another hour or so.” He stares at her hand for a second then drops it, throwing his own up in the air. “Hey- you totally could just phase yourself out of it without my help!”

She bites her lip and flips her hair, effectively tuning out his protests. “Well, now that we’ve established that I’m the clear winner-”

“Hey!”

“-and that I have the best survival skills,” she continues blithely. “I think now’s a good time to cut our losses and combine the best parts of both our efforts.”

“Which are?”

“Glad you asked!” She says, stepping into his space so he can start carrying her back down. He starts moving back to her own shelter – it’s clear that’s where she wants to stay tonight – while she speaks. “While my building is obviously the best fortified, making it the best shelter, yours managed to achieve true coziness. We might’ve been safe in mine, but we wouldn’t be able to get to bed for quite a while.”

“Oh. Oh, that’s really smart,” Peter breathes while they phase back into her safehouse. “I can carry over the webbing and make mattresses!”

“Exactly,” she answers. “And now we’ve figured out everything we’ll need to stay here!”

Just then, as if on cue, both their stomachs rumble- with Peter’s advanced metabolism, his sounds like a freight train. He leans over and groans.

Kitty holds her own stomach, then checks on him where he lays pitifully on the ground. “Um. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Well, you ran into me around lunchtime, so…breakfast?” He weakly manages. “Food. I cannot believe we forgot about food but we figured out how to make mattresses and a fortress.”

“Ugh- Mr. Logan never put me in charge of food, because it’s always been totally gross. I always made Rogue and Kurt deal with that stuff.” She drops to the ground beside him and sighs. “For two arguably genius-level children, I think it’s fair to say we’re idiots. I’m guessing you won’t be able to set up the beds tonight?”

“That’s a pretty good guess,” Peter says, mustering up his best attempt at a laugh.

She shifts uncomfortably on the floor, then glances at him lying beside her and frowns. “This feels like a tomorrow problem, though. Let’s get some rest.”

He rolls over and buries his head in his hands. “Sounds like a plan, Kitty.”


	3. Happy Hunting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some spiders use webs to parachute young to find a food source.
> 
> Some spiders use the vibrations of things landing on their webs to catch their prey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 3 is up! peter and kitty are still bonding- aren't they great friends?
> 
> i like writing fluffy fics- this is kind of fun
> 
> anyways, feel free to drop a comment if you liked it or if you have any other ideas for spider facts!

Peter Parker may have been a superhero in practice, but he was a city kid at heart; and he had no idea how to forage for food in a wasteland. 

Survival skills like building shelters – although he’d still argue that he had done an admirable job, ignoring the fact that he was the only one who could sleep in his webbed cocoon – and finding dinner on his own had never really been a priority in his training- he maintains his Avengers training was holistically adequate in comparison to the X-Men regimen. 

Still, as he does his best to hunt down whatever vermin had made its way into various buildings while Kitty started a fire, he decides his first order of business when he got back will be to ask Sam, Bucky, and Natasha for a survival course- that is, if the infamous Wolverine turns him down first.

As it was, Peter is stressing hard about getting this done but still hasn’t accomplished anything productive. In fact, he was pretty sure he could call himself the opposite of productive- in his sheer boredom, he’d begun stringing up webs surrounding their safehouse and had created one giant – and ultimately pointless – spiderweb, stretching over a big chunk of the block.

“Hey Peter, did you found anything- oh my gosh, what have you been doing out here?”

Peter turns slowly to meet Kitty’s incredulous gaze, and smiles sheepishly. “Well, I happened to have an abundance of webbing and apparently no skill at hunting, so…”

She raises her eyebrow at him. “…So you wasted most of your webbing and our time, when neither of us had eaten in, like, twenty-four hours, to goof off out here?”

“Yes?” He answers, and- yeah, okay, it’s barely been a day and he’s already completely obliterated whatever chance he had of her thinking him cool after that first disastrous interaction.

To his surprise though, she laughs and throws herself roughly onto one of the patches of webbing. “Well,” she starts with a grin, even as she finds herself entirely stuck to the webbing. “Better make the most of it then, yeah?”

He smiles and jumps on beside her. “I think you’re right- if we’re not going to be able to find food soon, we could at least have some fun with this impromptu vacation!”

With his natural immunity to the stickiness of the webs, Peter is effectively able to use the extensive webbing as a trampoline; and with a bit of practice on the timing of how to gain momentum to jump and then phase out of the webs at the perfect moment to get air, Kitty does the same.

She glances up at him during a particularly high jump when he’s managed to launch himself above a tall roof, and does her best to match him- it’s pretty impressive, considering she doesn’t have super-strength. 

“You got any more fun spider tricks up your sleeve?”

Peter readies his web shooters and grins. “Obviously. Just watch and learn.”

From his station on top of the building, Peter sprays out a big bit of webbing, then grabs onto it with both hands and begins free-falling to the ground.

Kitty had been idly paying attention, but the moment he jumps she phases through the webbing in panic, then jumps to her feet to look at him. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing, you’re not above the spider-webs-”

Before she can finish – or get too panicked – Peter’s webbing catches the air and he gently floats down, swaying on the breeze. He drops down finally, then jogs over to her- he’d floated further than he’d expected due to wind.

“See! Parachuting!” He declares proudly, draping the leftover webbing over a nearby awning. 

“Holy crap, that is, like, totally so cool,” Kitty bursts out, glancing at the webbing enviously. “Wanna see what’s even cooler?”

He looks back at her and grins. “Boy, do I ever. Hit me with it!”

Then – to his complete and utter astonishment – he sees her form go a little transparent, like it always does when she starts phasing, and then she takes a step into the air. Before long, she’s made it all the way up to the rooftop he’d just been on.

“Holy crap- you can fly?” He gasps. This had not been on her hero roster, and he was about 99% sure he’d never seen her do this in a public X-Men fight.

She jumps off the building, gracefully, then falls through the ground for just a few seconds before reemerging on Peter’s other side. “Professor X says I shouldn’t advertise it, but you seem chill enough. Pretty awesome, right!”

“Oh, totally,” Peter says in awe. “You’re totally the coolest. My spider powers don’t even compare to flying. Just- wow.”

She laughs and playfully punches him in the arm. “It’s not quite flying, more like becoming lighter than air. And oh, don’t be too hard on yourself- your spider powers are, like, totally cool too. This has been like, the best day- I love going crazy with my powers, none of my friends at the mansion ever seem to want to play around with them.”

“Thanks, Kitty,” Peter says while they make their way back to the extensive collection of spiderwebs. 

It’s been a great deal of fun – a necessary respite, even considering that they’ve been heavily ignoring the reality that there are some potentially dangerous mutants after Kitty – until suddenly they realize that they’re really, really hungry.

Peter’s got an accelerated metabolism, but between them both running around and extensively using their powers for the past hour, Kitty has managed to work up a big appetite as well.

“Okay,” he groans, sprawled out next to Kitty in the center of the webs. “I’m still hungry, and I think I'm officially starving. Please tell me there’s an actual plan to get some food?”

“I hate to say it,” Kitty starts, already hedging her words, “but I’ve got nothing. Mr. Logan, like, always has me make the shelters, because I can phase stuff together pretty well and, well, hunting freaks me out.”

He sighs and looks over at her. “Seriously?” She nods sadly and he sighs once more. “I get it, I don’t think I’ve ever killed anything before.” His stomach growls ominously, right on cue, and she winces in sympathy. “I might be rethinking that rule soon, just to get something to eat.”

“I totally understand,” she whines. “If we ever manage to catch something, that is.”

He throws his head back on the center of the webbing and lays there next to Kitty, completely still. It’s peaceful for a moment, until he feels something ticking at him annoyingly. It feels sort of like his spider sense, but on a more physical level- he can’t ignore it, but it shares the same incessant buzz like his powers.

“Hey Kitty, could you stop that?” 

She looks over at him and he’s suddenly aggressively aware of the world around them- of his senses, of every single little thing moving across his extensive spiderweb that passes through several blocks.

“Stop what, Peter-”

“Shhh, don’t move,” he whispers, sitting up and focusing on where his hands are touching the webbing. “Somethings here.”

She stays still like he asked, but still frowns. “Oh my- Is it Pyro? Do we need to get into the safehouse?”

He ignores her, and takes a deep breath, feeling the vibrations of something moving on his nest. Suddenly, it all clicks and he’s got it. He jumps up and sprints across the webbing towards the source of the disturbance- two rabbits who had stumbled across his webs and were trying to break free. Before they can do so, he grabs them easily and begins walking back to Kitty, balancing easily on top of the razor-thin strands.

She stares in surprise at his bounty, and he grins with unabashed pride.

“Guess who caught dinner?”


	4. The Fight Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spider silk can be used to wrap and immobilize prey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, obviously, the mutants have some lingering anger towards the avengers- i feel like that'd be pretty realistic in a combined universe
> 
> feel free to let me know what you think, and leave a comment if you have any cool spider facts- i might add them to my prompt list!

Sometimes, even the best-laid plans go to waste and end in disaster. And- other times, you spend two days making a friend and having fun without any adult heroes lecturing you, and you tend to forget altogether about any lingering threats.

Peter will never admit which category he and Kitty fall into, but it’s fair to say that once they figured out how fun goofing off with their powers together could be, it’s about all they did.

By the third morning, they’ve practically forgotten all about what Kitty was running from- Peter hadn’t even really asked about it, beyond her rambled confession when they were first meeting. All he knows is that she’d made some guy named Pyro mad because she got mixed up in a fight between him, Bobby, and Rogue.

They’d spent the first parts of the morning using Peter’s webbing to hunt down meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; then they used the rest of the day playing on said webbing until they got too exhausted to stand.

Now, they’re lying sprawled out across the webbing, passing a charred chunk of rabbit leg between them for lunch.

They’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop for a while now, and Peter would be hard-pressed to forget about the potential danger entirely- even if he’s done a good job of it the past few days. “So, are any of the X-Men going to come looking for you soon?”

He’d meant it from a purely tactical standpoint, but Kitty shifts awkwardly and laughs weakly. “Unless Bobby and Rogue do end up coming for us, I doubt it. But they’re pretty wrapped up in their own stuff right now; Kurt’s got some stuff with his mom that he’s worried about, and Scott and Jean never look away from each other long enough to notice me. And there’s way too many newbies right now for the teachers to pay attention to me.”

“Oh,” Peter answers- because what does he say to that? “I’m sorry, Kitty, that sucks.”

“Yeah, well,” she mutters, pouting for a moment before taking a deep breath and looking back towards him. “Got anyone looking for you?”

Peter thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “Mr. Stark will have noticed I took my tracer out, but he’s been saying for a while I need to break off and do something rebellious- since it’s Spring Break, he’ll probably think that’s what it is. He’ll let my Aunt know I’m alright, unless I’m gone longer than just a few days, in which case he’ll probably send out an Avengers-wide man-hunt. There’s not really anyone else, other than those two, who would notice immediately.”

The silence between them turns awkward, and all Peter can hear is the sound of their breathing. It’s never a good conversation stimulant, admitting one’s crushing loneliness and sadness with their life.

“Hey, Spider-Boy?” Kitty asked tentatively.

He looks over at her slowly. “Yeah?”

“I’m really glad we got to do this. I, well I don’t have a lot of other hero friends my age. And I don’t, like, really have anyone outside the X-Men anymore. It’s good to know there’s other good people in this city- the way my teachers and the Brotherhood have spoken about the Avengers, I was hard-pressed not to trust you. I’m glad I gave you a chance.”

Her eyes are soft and he rolls over to look at her better. “Thanks, Kitty, that’s really sweet. I’m glad I met you too-” Something big hits one of his webs stretching towards the edge of the city, and his spider sense twinges along with it. “We have to move.”

“Peter?” she asks, confused. He jumps off the web and starts running to the safehouse, and she loses all looseness their relaxation had created in an instant. “It’s Pyro, right?”

He glances over his shoulder to see her running towards him where he stands outside their home, then flinches as she takes hold of him and yanks him through the wall with her. “I think so.”

Her form wavers between transparency and solidity, and the display of power is a clear reminder that she’s been doing this longer than him- she’s just as well-trained, if not better. “Any idea how many there are?”

“I sensed three people hitting the webs. One of them was heavy and moving fast, one of them was trying to jump around but just got tangled up. The other one seemed like a normal person- I think they’re burning up my webs to get free.”

She hisses and grabs a big wood board off one of the walls. “Shoot- that’s more people than I was expecting. You’re sure they were all together? There weren’t one or two coming from the other side? No one had like…a cold presence, or anything like that?”

“No, Kitty,” he sighs and looks down at her. “I don’t think there’s help coming…We should get ready.” He pulls on his mask and makes sure his web shooters are fastened securely to his uniform. “So, are we waiting for them to come to us or should we go to them?”

Just then, they hear a big crash on one of the metal walls outside and a terrible sound of nails scraping on steel. Above them, they hear feet impact on their main escape. 

Peter and Kitty look at each other, panicked, as a crackling sound starts outside the front walls and they both start sweating. 

“I guess they’re coming to us,” she says nervously. “And Pyro’s already found us.”

He holds out his hand and she takes it firmly. “We’ve got this, Shadowcat. Let’s get out of here together.”

She grins and pulls him through the back exit, hoping to initially evade the people on top and in front who had been banging on the metal barriers. They hear a big explosion and can feel the concrete shudder as their safehouse goes down in flames.

His jaw drops and he stares at it, aghast. “Holy crap, are these guys trying to kill you- I thought you just got involved in a small fight?”

She takes off running and he’s hard-pressed to follow after her. “Bobby and John have all kinds of weird drama. Let’s not wait around and find out!”

They start winding their way through the mess of freshly burning rubble, webbing, and tall buildings in the city- they’re moving fast, but it’s not quite enough, because they can still hear footsteps behind them. Peter can run faster than most, part of his powers, but Kitty’s starting to struggle to keep up.

It’s when she stumbles around a corner too slow that Peter’s tackled by someone from above,and is tugged up onto a roof before she notices. His attacker sticks some kind of foul-tasting gag in Peter’s mouth so he can’t call out to her, and he struggles, throwing the first mystery guy off for a moment before someone giant grabs onto him and throws him down onto the roof.

He watches her glance around for a moment, trying to figure out where he went, before continuing on her own. This Pyro guy – about their age, decked out in fire-themed orange clothes, Peter can respect the commitment to aesthetic – is right on her heels and she doesn’t have time to wait for him. 

There’s nothing that Peter can do as he forces his way up, throwing the big guy off of him only to get smacked in the face by more of the toxic-smelling gooey stuff. He pulls it off his face, stumbling heavily, only to open his eyes to see two of the oddest-looking mutants he’s ever seen.

One of them is absolutely massive, with overgrown hair and sideburns, long talon-like claws extending off his fingers. The other is hunched over on all fours, balancing lightly while hunched over, the same toxic sludge stuff that he’d put in Peter’s mouth and face coming out of his mouth, slow and sticky.

“Oh my god, who on earth are you two?” Peter gasps, stumbling back. “You’ve never been a part of the X-Men.”

The big guy laughs heartily before stepping forward menacingly. “No, Avenger. We’re part of the Brotherhood, and we’re here for the little goody-two-shoes X-Kid. But now that we’ve caught Iron Man’s little kid? Well, we’re happy to have another target.”

The hunched one hops towards him, falling in line with his friend. “I’m Toad, and my friend here is Sabretooth. We’re going to show you why mutants are better than all you stupid heroes with your stupid Accords- who better to serve as a big symbol than the famous Spider-Man?”

Peter’s jaw drops and he stares dumbfounded at them. “You- you’re coming after me because of the Accords? Like- the Sokovian ones?”

Sabretooth leans over and puts his hand firmly on Peter’s shoulder, pressing down far too hard to be anything other than a trap. His claws dig in and Peter winces. “I thought you were supposed to be smart. Aren’t you Stark’s mentee?”

“Look- you’ve got to know. I never liked those Accords- and I was never even really a part of them!” They do not seem to appreciate his protests.

Toad spits heavily on him, this time aiming for each of his limbs, effectively pinning down both his wrists and feet. He shifts angrily, but the stuff is already hardening- and with Sabretooth helping pin him down, he seems pretty effectively trapped. He could probably break through with his super-strength, but he doubts he’ll be able to stop Sabretooth from throwing him down – or worse – immediately afterwards.

“It’s funny,” he growls, hand pressing down on Peter’s chest. “I was under the impression you fought on Iron Man’s side.”

Peter sighs deeply- at least, as much as he can considering how heavy Sabretooth’s pressure on him is. “That’s- that’s not really fair, you know. I was a kid when that all went down, and no one exactly told me what was going on. I wouldn’t have picked that side if I had known- Tony didn’t give me a chance to look into it before carting me off to Germany.”

“Oh yeah?” Toad growls, leaning forwards into his space. He smells positively foul and Peter fights the urge to cringe back. “It went down about a year ago. Are you telling us the Avengers let a little kid on their team?”

Peter glares – he’d like to think the sentiment still rings true, regardless of the mask – and huffs. “Yes. Well- I wouldn’t call myself a little kid, but the idea is the same-.”

Sabretooth growls and presses down harder. “I don’t go easy on kids. Don’t go expecting to be let off easy.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Peter chokes out.

“Well kid, why would you have gone on our side? What could an Avenger like you possibly have to gain from siding with mutants?” Toad says, leaning forward so more of his toxic spit falls onto Peter’s face. There’s a loud sound of an explosion somewhere off in the distance and Peter hears a scream so he starts to struggle, and Sabretooth slams his foot down on Peter’s harm. He hears a snap, and all the air rushes out of him in one harsh gasp. 

“Answer the question, Spider-Man,” Sabretooth snarls.

After a few deep breathes to try and manage the pain, Peter manages to bite out his answer. “I didn’t want to be a hero, either. Got forced into it- I ended up with my powers due to an accident while I was touring a science lab, and got transformed against my will.” He looks up at them- Sabretooth’s face hasn’t changed, but Toad’s starting to look a bit uncertain. “I’ve always wanted to help people, but I didn’t want to be a hero. I have this power now, though, and I feel indebted to use it. Doesn’t mean I would’ve chosen it on my own or that I think mutants should register for something they were born with either.”

He focuses on his next words, trying to force out the pain clawing at his senses- he thinks his arm might be broken. “I keep my identity secret too, you know? I wouldn’t sell anyone out on purpose.” He means it to sound confident and convincing, but he’s too wrecked to sound anything but brokenly panicked. 

Toad leans off him and sits down on the roof, thinking hard. “I believe you, kid. Hey, maybe we should lay off him a bit?”

“Are you serious?” Sabretooth growls, glaring at his partner, starting to get into an argument. It doesn’t seem new. “You’ve got to stop laying off all our enemies just because they’ve got a sob story. Everyone’s got a sad past- hell, you’ve got a sob story, Toadie!”

“Well you just run around and attack everyone you can! Would it kill you to lay off anyone for just a few seconds?” Toad responds, getting worked up.

He watches them grow increasingly angry and oblivious to his presence there, trying his best to calm his breathing through the growing haze of pain so he can focus on what to do next. Taking advantage of the opportunity – and remaining conscious of the fact that Kitty’s fighting off an enemy all by herself – he manages to break his left arm out of the hardened toad slime, then uses his free hand to quickly smash the rest of his bonds. It hurts his newly broken arm pretty bad, but he jumps off the building as stealthily as he can- thankfully, his captors don’t manage to notice.

As soon as he puts a reasonable amount of distance between them, he lands on a secure part of his webbing in the hopes that he’ll detect if someone is on their way, then webs up his right arm to prevent the bone from jostling more than necessary.

Now that that’s settled, he begins making his way to the scream he heard from earlier and the accompanying pillar of smoke rising up from it.

He jumps up on a high nearby rooftop to look down at the battle. Most of the area is covered in flames, and Pyro has managed to find high ground of his own to aim the fire at Kitty, who seems to have been locked in a dangerous game of dodge and phase for the last while- based on how slow she’s starting to move, Peter would say she’s been hit a few times.

He drops down onto Pyro’s back and grabs onto the guy’s exposed gasoline pack, tearing it open with his good arm. He’s immediately thrown back off, but the damage is done- this guy is out of flames.

Peter then jumps closer to Kitty, the uses his webs to yank her away from the worst of the flames- her ponytail is singed and her uniform is charred around the edges, but her person looks relatively safe from the damage.

She coughs roughly and looks up to him, smiling weakly. “Nice of you to drop in like this, Spider-Boy.”

“Sorry it took so long,” he answers, giving her a tight hug with his working arm.

“Oh- oh my gosh, what happened to you?” She yelps, staring at his tightly wrapped arm- which is valid, Peter knows it probably looks terrifyingly out of place.

He sighs and tries to rotate his shoulder casually, but it only succeeds in reigniting the pain and he winces painfully. “Sabretooth and Toad got to me.” 

She steps back, spots the leftover flakes of Toad’s dried spit, and grimaces- it’s clearly the look of someone who has fought this guy before. “Oh, ew. Absolutely disgusting. And what the hell- Sabretooth should be way too big time for this kind of thing!”

Pyro – John, he thinks Kitty said his name was – is howling in anger on the roof but Peter binds his arms with webbing so he can’t take control of the lingering flames. 

They hear a shout from a ways away, probably Toad and Sabretooth noticing that Peter managed to escape – took them long enough, the fools – and so they swing back that way. Kitty pulls Sabretooth through a wall deep enough that he can’t break free and Peter traps Toad flat on the rooftop with his webs- now that they’re fighting together, it’s almost easy to pick them off and incapacitate them.

The two of them take off walking away from the wreckage together, getting to safety and then sitting down to recuperate and watch the ruined cityscape burn.

“What a day, right?” Peter mutters, trying to sit comfortably while leaning back and supporting his weight with his one arm.

Kitty slumps limply against his shoulder and groans. “I cannot believe this happened- that they actually took the time to track us and fight us, and that we managed to win against them all.”

“Sorry we kind of ruined the training ground.” And it’s pretty devastated- which is a little impressive, since Peter had considered it a wreck before.

She snorts and shakes her head. “Mr. Logan will probably be excited- I bet he’ll thank us for adding some toxic fumes to the survival training.” She glances down at his broken arm and her own injury- a semi-significant burn that burnt through the uniform on her upper thigh. “We should probably figure out a way to get help, next. Guess our week’s coming to an end- I’m going to absolutely kill Bobby for not coming to bail us out-”

Peter yelps, interrupting her, as he feels a rough hand grab the back of his shirt, yanking him into the air and leaving Kitty to flail against the ground. “What the-!”

The answering voice is deep, gravelly, and terrifyingly familiar. “Gonna let me know what happened to my training area, Bub?”


	5. Making Amends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spider silk can be used to create webs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol plz appreciate my casual interpretation of including spider facts
> 
> lemme know your thoughts! i love comments/kudos, they mean a lot
> 
> my tumblr is kittypryde-bipride if you wanna check it out

“Ho-ly shit!” Peter screeched as he ran full-tilt through a room that just minutes before had been affectionately referred to as ‘the Danger Room’. “Why are there lasers! Who put fucking lasers in here?”

The Danger Room is arguably the most stress Peter’s tried to endure in a long time- and that includes having buildings dropped on him. It’s a shining silvery steel contraption with giant metal pieces continually detatching from walls and coming after him, leading to a sensory overload that’s giving him a headache. His spidey-sense has been going off non-stop ever since they turned it on, and he’s going to start running into things if it doesn’t cool down- he’s already losing the ability to focus.

He hears the click of the intercom turning on – by people safe outside this death trap, observing his own frantic plight – and a smooth voice he doesn’t recognize sounds out. 

“Sorry Spider-Man, but Wolverine thinks it’s important to be prepared for any situation. We had…assumed that as an Avenger, you’d be prepared for a real threat.”

He grimaces – Wolverine is clearly a mad-man, all of the bad rumors he’d heard about him seemed to be true – and jumps up, narrowly dodging a metal arm reaching out of the wall, trying to see into the overhanging control center.

Before he can, he’s tugged back down and tossed in front of the ever-moving contraption. It takes him barely a moment to react, but that gives one of the lasers time to singe his arm- he winces and spins around. 

“What the hell, Kitty?” he yelps, trying to check the damage on his uniform.

She grins and grabs a hold of his arm – he can feel that split second where he turns intangible, when it feels like he’s become nothing at all, it’s still as nauseating as the first time – just as another arm swings down towards them. She drops hold of him and now it’s his turn to grab onto her, picking her up and swinging high to get them out of most of their attacker’s names. 

“Oh, come on Spidey,” she says, hitting his head gently. “Don’t get mad at Storm because Mr. Logan likes to be crazy.”

The same smooth voice rings out over the room again. “Thank you for defending me, Shadowcat, but I think your attention would best be spent on completing these challenges. Watch your left, Spider-Man.”

“What?” he yelps, turning quickly and- yep, sure enough, there’s a massive chain swinging towards them both. He fires a web across the room, hitting the control center, and swings them as fast as they can. He glances down at Kitty, whose eyes are screwed shut with the effort of keeping them tangible enough to stay together and finish their trip across the room, but still phasing them through oncoming projectiles. “Glad to see you’ve been working on your fine control, Ms. Pryde.”

She smirks back at him weakly until they smack into the control room, and then she quickly pulls them through before he can drop them due to his own exhaustion.

They land on their feet in the room, and Kitty cocks her hip and grins towards Storm. “Fastest time yet, Ororo?”

Storm shakes her head and laughs. “Not bad, Kitty, though I think you’ll have to talk to Logan about whether it counts.”

“Oh, come on,” Peter interjects, letting go of Kitty and throwing his hands up. “We just used our powers to survive in a room that- that you called the Danger Room, of all things. That should be illegal by the way, to put kids in.”

“Yeah?” Wolverine says in a growl.

Peter jumps about a foot in the air and shrieks. “Where the hell did you come from?”

“Around,” Wolverine answers, frowning at him. “How do you Avengers train? I’m sure the great Tony Stark would have tons of notes on this state-of-the-art technology survival training.”

“I train and patrol multiple hours a day, thank you very much,” Peter responds petulantly, pouting with his lip out- not that Wolverine can tell through his mask. 

The older man scoffs regardless and raises his eyebrows condescendingly towards Peter. “You and your Avengers train for just a few hours a day? I’m sure it’s fun- probably feels like a nice vacation, up in that fancy tower of yours.”

“Uh- this is a mansion?” Peter asks hesitantly. “Not sure you can judge me based on where I train.”

“I’m not sure you can judge us based on anything, bub,” Wolverine snarls, getting fully into Peter’s space now- and yup, that’s incredibly intimidating, Peter feels more than a little panicked.

Kitty phases between them – they’d moved so close that it’s the only way she can get to the middle and interrupt them – and solidifies her hands, shoving both of them back until she has space to stand. “What are you two arguing about?” She asks, clearly confused. “Spidey didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t know!” Peter says anxiously, still nervous from how aggressive the more seasoned and powerful mutant is being towards him.

Wolverine just shakes his head and crosses his arms. “He probably doesn’t know, sitting up there in that big tower, looking down at us. We get this mansion because we have nowhere else to go, these kids deserve something nice You run with billionaires and government heroes who chose to get that way, and you want to come and use our resources, come train with us? I don’t think you deserve any of it-”

“Logan, that’s enough,” Storm interjects, done with trying to watch this play out quietly. “He’s a child, you can’t blame him for your grievances with his friends-”

“Oh, why can’t I, Storm?” He responds, getting angrier, and Kitty shrinks back into Peter as Storm stands to be on equal ground for their argument. 

In one of his more foolish and impulsive moves, Peter steps forward and redirects Wolverine’s attention towards him. “Not all of the Avengers chose to have powers,” he says quietly. “And those who did didn’t realize what the Accords meant- they didn’t want to support persecution towards mutants.”

Wolverine frowns at him, but seems a little less incensed. “You’re right, I’m sure they just didn’t think of us. It’s probably nice to have that option. So, how about you, kid- what category do you fall into?”

“I-” Peter starts, but seeing the latent anger in Wolverine’s eyes – the silent judgment in Storm’s, even if she’s unwilling to fight with him now – he pulls off his mask to show them who he is. This is clearly an argument whose roots run deep, and he’ll need to give them a big show of trust to make any headway here. Kitty groans when she sees his mask being pulled off, but Storm freezes and Wolverine looks more than a little surprised. “I didn’t choose my powers, but I chose to become a hero once I had them. And I didn’t know what the Accords were- they didn’t tell me that’s what the fight was even about.”

“You’re very young, Spider-Man,” Storm says, softly now. “I’m sorry we judged you so harshly.”

He swallows and smiles gratefully, then turns back to Wolverine. “Mr. Stark pulled me out of my apartment and kind of blackmailed me into coming. He told me it was a little spat and that he just needed help against Captain America. I was fifteen. If he asked me to fight for the Accords today, I would’ve said no.”

At this, Wolverine finally nods towards Peter. “Well, at least I know there’s one not completely terrible Avenger out there. You’re welcome to come train here anytime, I suppose- could be helpful to practice with other people who aren’t in the government’s pocket.”

Peter grins at him – ignoring the underhanded diss to the Avengers, because honestly? It’s kind of deserved from the mutants – and throws his arm casually around Kitty’s shoulders, pulling her back towards the group. “There’s other Avengers I think you’d like, by the way. Wanda didn’t choose this stuff either; Hulk too.”

The adults visibly grimace at the mention of the Hulk. “Maybe we’ll start by getting to know you,” Storm says diplomatically.

An awkward silence falls over the group – they may have just mended a long-standing bridge between them, but they don’t really know each other yet – until Kitty jumps in, clapping her hands once to get their attention. “We should all go train outside, if there’s time- you guys are going to lose your mind at Peter’s spider powers.”

Storm cocks her head at them curiously. “I thought you had super-strength and lab-made webbing. I didn’t realize ‘Spider-Man’ was anything beyond a bug-themed moniker.”

Kitty grabs his hand from where it’s still over her shoulders and begins dragging him towards the door of the Control Room. “It’s so much cooler than that- Mr. Logan, he’s going to ace your training course. And he has a healing factor! Oh, you two are going to get along so well now.”

Peter yelps as he’s pulled out of the room, doing his best to tug his mask back on before they make it to the main halls. They walk past curious mutants his age, all watching Kitty haul him with Storm and Wolverine flanking him from behind, until he’s finally brought outside onto the mansion’s sprawling grounds.

“All right,” Kitty starts, letting go of him and stepping back. “Let’s show them what you’ve got.”


End file.
